Trump lawyers’ 'huge' reaction to 'important witness' Michael Cohen’s role in fraud trial is wrong: analyst

During Monday's episode of MSNBC's The Beat with Ari Melber, legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained to guest host Katie Phang why ex-President Donald Trump's attorneys' reaction to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's deposition, which was played during the opening statements in the MAGA hopeful's New York civil fraud trial October 2, is futile.

Phang notes during the pair's conversation that in the deposition, Cohen admitted he and ex-Trump chief financial adviser Allen Weisselberg "inflated assets" during their time at the Trump Organization.

"I mean, Lisa, we know that there's independent documents that the AG's office corroborates," Phang said. "Not only Michael Cohen's testimony, but some of the stuff Weisselberg himself has admitted to doing. Was there any visible reaction from Donald Trump when this particular portion was played and do you think it strengthens the case to have Michael cohen testify to this?"

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Rubin replied, "I can't tell you what Donald Trump's reaction was to Michael Cohen in part because I only saw him from the back, but I can tell you the lawyers' reaction to having Michael Cohen involved was huge, and they focused heavily on Michael Cohen, essentially accusing the attorney general's office of constructing this entire case around Michael Cohen, when in actuality, he's going to play a small part here to talk about the motives that Trump had in reverse engineering those valuations, as you said earlier, to meet an overall end objective. But, the evidence here will lie in e-mails, will lie in testimony, will lie text messages, and even communications with the town, for example, that [Trump New York estate] Seven Springs lies, and where they tried to get a tax deduction and then lowered the value of the property correspondingly only to increase others. That's really where the crux of the evidence is, and I do think Michael Cohen will be an important witness, but certainly not the central figure in this trial that Trump's lawyers have made him out to be."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump lawyers exaggerate Michael Cohen's role in NY fraud trialyoutu.be

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